"An out-and-out Jacobite, Papist, and a' the rest o' it—I ken by the look o' him!" cried Maclutchy, the macer, flourishing his badge of office. "Here will be some grand plots brought to light that will bring half the country under doom o' forfeiture and fine. Kittle times, lads, kittle times!'
"Away with him!" cried Clermistonlee, spurning the manacled unfortunate with his foot; "away with him! The Lords of the Privy Council meet in an hour. Lose no time, for by all the devils, the corbies of the Burghmuir shall pick his bones ere the morrow's sun be set."
As Walter was roughly dragged away, Lilian threw her hands above her head, uttered one wild shriek, and fell forward on her face, motionless as if dead.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE RING AND THE SECRET.
See the cypress wreath of saddest hue,
The twining destiny threading through;
And the serpent coil is twisting there—
While regardless of the victim's prayer,
The fiend laughs out o'er the mischief done,
And the canker-worm makes the heart his throne.
THE PROPHECY.
Twelve o'clock tolled heavily and sadly from the steeple of St. Giles.
It was a bleak and cold night. The Lords of the Privy Council, muffled up in their well-furred rocquelaures, with their hats flapped over their periwigs, ascended from the subterranean vaults under the Parliament House where they held their dreaded conclaves, and hurried away to their residences in the various deep and steep wynds of the ancient city. Mersington, who, overcome by sleep and wine, had remained at the table until roused by Macer Maclutchy, was the last to come forth, and he stood rubbing his eyes in the Parliament Square, and watching the black gigantic statue of King Charles with steady gravity, for he could have sworn at that moment that it seemed to be trotting hard towards him. His rallying faculties were scattered again by a stranger violently jostling him.
"Haud ye dyvour loon!" exclaimed the incensed Senator; "I am the Lord Mersington."
"And what art doing here, pumpkinhead?" asked Clermistonlee, who was quite breathless by having rushed up the Back Stairs, as those flights of steps which ascended from the Cowgate to the Parliament Square were named. "Are the proceedings over? Hath the villain confessed? Is he to die?"